Between Postwar Ruination and Revival

Lovers of golden-age Japanese cinema have long owed a debt to the Criterion Collection, which sets the benchmark for restoring and releasing such movies on home video. The company's efforts have been two-pronged: the reintroduction, in improved editions, of cornerstone titles like
Kenji Mizoguchi's
"The Life of Oharu" (1952)—just out—and the distribution of more obscure material. A great example of the latter is the recent release, on Criterion's lower-priced Eclipse label, of four black-and-white pictures from early in the career of
Masaki Kobayashi,
a director who later achieved international recognition with the affecting samurai dramas "Harakiri" (1962) and "Samurai Rebellion" (1967) and "Kwaidan" (1964), a taut, visually stunning collection of ghost stories.

The new set, "Masaki Kobayashi: Against the System," takes a critical look at less salubrious aspects of Japanese society between the country's postwar ruination and its transformation into an economic powerhouse. Three of the films were made before the director's epic triptych, "The Human Condition" (1959-61), a rumination on individual responsibility and collective guilt during wartime; the fourth followed just after.

The earliest picture here, "The Thick-Walled Room" (1956), was completed in 1953, but its sensitive subject—the imprisonment of lower-ranking Japanese soldiers for war crimes—delayed its release. A prisoner-of-war himself, Kobayashi had a lifelong interest in the topic. (In addition to this movie and "The Human Condition," he later made a documentary, "Tokyo Trial," about the Japanese equivalent of the Nuremberg trials.) The film, its screenplay by the eminent Japanese writer
Kobo Abe,
is set in prison, where a group of inmates recount their crimes through flashbacks. In each case, a superior—and more culpable—officer either escaped justice altogether or was treated much more leniently. But the film's appeal for sympathy will likely leave many American viewers unmoved.

By contrast, "I Will Buy You" (1956) should appeal to anyone who enjoyed the recent U.S. movie "Moneyball." Set in the world of professional baseball, the picture follows a young scout, Kishimoto (
Keiji Sada
), as he pursues
Goro Kurita
(
Minoru Ooki
), a fickle prodigy. The film strikes at the venality surrounding professional sports—and not just among teams and their agents. Kobayashi and his screenwriter, Zenzo Matsuyama (with whom he later collaborated on "The Human Condition"), are at least as interested in the corruption, both financial and moral, that infects the athletes and their circle. The most fascinating character in the film—artfully shot by the great cinematographer Yuharu Atsuta—is the young player's oily benefactor (
Yunosuke Ito
), whose motives remain opaque.

"Black River" (1956), also shot by Atsuta and written by Matsuyama, is set primarily in a shabby apartment house. When it becomes financially expedient to demolish the place for a bathhouse, the greedy landlady (Isuzu Yamada, the Lady Macbeth character in Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood") conspires with a ruthless developer and a pliable city official to dupe the residents into leaving. In a parallel plot, the man responsible for emptying the premises, the pitiless Killer Joe (
Tatsuya Nakadai
), takes a shine to Shizuko (
Ineko Arima
), an innocent enamored of one of the residents. But once Joe corrupts Shizuko, she turns into something of a femme fatale. The film's complex characters and noir sensibility make it immediately appealing, but this picture also has the distinction of being the first to provide a major role for Mr. Nakadai, who became one of Japan's foremost movie stars and a keystone in Kobayashi's best work.

Filmed in widescreen, "The Inheritance" (1962) arrived on the heels of "The Human Condition," and though considerably lighter, it benefits from the confidence Kobayashi acquired making his triptych. Beginning at the end, the film recounts the rise of a meek secretary, Yasuko (
Keiko Kishi,
the ingénue in "The Thick-Walled Room" and "I Will Buy You"), who aids her dying boss, Kawahara (So Yamamura), as he attempts to locate his three children, all illegitimate. With a fortune at stake, Kawahara's trophy wife and his lieutenants (Mr. Nakadai among them) attempt to manipulate the situation to their individual advantage, while Yasuko rises above the fray. After succumbing to Kawahara's unwanted advances, she emerges as the old man's confidante and, ultimately, his beneficiary. This movie also marks the first of Kobayashi's 10 collaborations with the composer
Toru Takemitsu,
whose jazzy score sets the film's pulse.

The arrival of this clutch of films in mostly superior transfers offers cinéastes a chance to broaden their appreciation of Kobayashi, an important director no longer famous in the West. And they make us thirst for more from a filmmaker who didn't shirk from asking hard questions about his society and its shortcomings.

Mr. Mermelstein writes for the Journal on film, television and classical music.

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